SHAFAQNA – Iraqi army soldiers have discovered a detention facility in the western flank of Mosul, which members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group used to incarcerate women from the Izadi minority group.

Iraq’s Ministry of Defense, in a statement released on Sunday, announced that the government forces found the prison in the recently-liberated 17th Tammuz neighborhoods of Mosul, located some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the capital Baghdad.

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the building also incorporated a so-called judicial tribunal, where army soldiers could recover dozens of classified papers.

The official added that Daesh had installed a comprehensive CCTV surveillance system across the building for the principal purposes of keeping an eye on the movements of the female detainees.

An unnamed commander said Daesh militants had set up the prison in the 17th Tammuz neighborhood as they never thought army soldiers would recapture the area.

Commander of the Federal Police Forces Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat said on May 20 that his forces had fully recaptured 17th Tammuz and Eqtesadieen neighborhoods of Mosul, and set up barricades and barriers in the liberated areas, Arabic-language al-Sumaria television network reported.

He added that 66 Daesh terrorists had been killed while 13 explosive-laden cars and nine motorcycle bombs had been destroyed during the operations.

Iraqi government forces advance in western Mosul’s Zanjili neighborhood on June 9, 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Daesh Takfiri terrorists. (Photo by AFP)

On March 13, Iraqi forces in western Mosul regained control over a textile factory that Daesh used as a jail to hold women.

“Daesh imprisoned nearly 300 women in the building,” Gayath Surchi, the speaker of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Mosul said at the time.

Surchi added that the women were transferred to refugee camps in northern Mosul, where they were identified and later reunited with their families.

“Their ages vary between 20 to 70 years old and some of them speak Kurdish,” he pointed out.

Back in August 2014, Daesh terrorists overran Sinjar, killing, raping, and enslaving large numbers of Izadis. The town was recaptured on November 13, 2015, during a two-day operation by Peshmerga forces and Izadi fighters.

The Office of Kidnapped Affairs in the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk says around 3,500 Izadi Kurds are being held captive in the Daesh-held areas, and that a large proportion of the abductees are women and children.

Iraqi army soldiers and volunteer fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units, commonly known by their Arabic name, Hashd al-Sha’abi, have made sweeping gains against the Takfiri elements since launching the Mosul operation on October 17, 2016.

The Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting, and launched the battle in the west on February 19.